Comment by downandout | Hacker News Reader

Comment by downandout | Hacker News Reader

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I'm not sure why they couldn't have used Stripe's "send money to debit card" feature [1]. Or they could have integrated with Paypal's API. Or they could have integrated with Square Cash, for near-instant debit card to debit card transfers [2].

Finally, they could have simply kept track of a kid's balance for their parents, and made a button to send mom and dad a push notification that they would like their money the next time they are together. That probably would have been the most useful of all these things.

They certainly didn't have to let the fact that they couldn't do things exactly as seamlessly as they wanted be a startup killer. I have had this attitude in the past, but then I would look around and discover people doing similar things with great success, using the alternative methods around roadblocks that I had dismissed as unacceptable.

If they really wanted to pursue this project, they could have done it.

[1] https://stripe.com/blog/send-money-to-debit-cards

[2] https://cash.me

That's only allowed if the destination is a "seller", and the debit card is tied to a bank account. You can't send to random pre-paid credit cards. That would be the scammer's dream.

Also, Stripe transfers funds to recipients only once a day at best. For many accounts, it's once a week. (This is also true of Venmo, but they hide it from you in the app. Send some money to a nearly empty account with Venmo and then try to spend that money, and it becomes clear that Venmo's immediacy is an illusion.)

>Send some money to a nearly empty account with Venmo and then try to spend that money, and it becomes clear that Venmo's immediacy is an illusion.

Regular bank accounts work that way too, when you deposit a check.

In the US that's true. Here in 21st century Britain I can initiate a bank transfer to another person from my phone, and they can immediately spend that money.

But can you do that on a large scale?

In the UK yes. Their payment system is a long way ahead of that in the USA.

In fact, for much of the world, this "deposit a check" is definitely from last century. Instant transfer is reality in Europe, and even many countries in Africa and Asia operate mobile banking services where transfers happen right away.

The currency is not necessarily cryptocurrency; it can be "air-time".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa

Here is a dirty little trick to make sure your check appears instantly in your account -- first you cash the check, then you deposit that cash to your account.

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